We have separated soul from experience, become totally taken up with the outside world and allowed the interior life to shrink.*
John O’Donohue

You cannot be a hero unless you are prepared to give up everything: there is no ascent to the heights without a prior descent into darkness, no new life without some form of death.**
Karen Armstrong

Self development is not the same as
self help;
It does not use secrets to bring you
the life that you want.
Indeed the life that you want may be the one that must
die
in order to free the life that is
generative:
Connecting,
Whole,
Persevering.
Joseph Campbell spoke of our need for two myths –
A personal myth and a social myth;
There are many ways to develop myths, including
dreamwhispering.
Drop me a line to find out more;
If I can help, I will.

*John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty;
**Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth.

Team Darth Vader or Team Luke Skywalker? Do you side with the Empire, even though your soul will probably be crushed in the process, or do you side with the Rebellion, even if the odds are stacked way, way, way, against you? … In the end, we all have our Empire side and our Rebellion side. *
gapingvoid

It’s not be accident that the pristine wilderness of our planet disappears as the understanding of your own inner wild nature fades.**
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Here’s the questions again:
What does it mean to you to be
human?
I have found myself asking a few people this lately;
There are always wonderful and fascinating and transcending responses that tend to cut through
everyday existence to something
more.
Something they want to be or to do,
Even while they are in the thick of
“all the things that need to be done.”
The question simply enables us to
remember,
Before it’s too late.

If I’ve learned nothing else,
I’ve learned this:
a questions is a powerful thing,
a mighty use of words.^

*gapingvoid’s blog: The ONE Choice All Fulfilled People Make;
**Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves;
^Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise.

To follow your gift is a calling to a wonderful adventure of discovery. Some of the deepest longings in you is the voice of your gift. The gift calls you to embrace it.*
John O’Donohue

I believe in finding what I didn’t know I was looking for.**
Austin Kleon

I like to think that we each have a gift that
someone needs;
And when it seems that we have found our gift, and
begin following it, then
we will realise this is only a beginning –
If we are open to be changed by the journey,
There certainly is an adventure to be lived.
It means that you don’t have to be
100% sure before starting out:
Look for the smallest expression of what
you are noticing is important to you, and
be ready to follow the trail.

*John O’Donohue’s Eternal Echoes;
**Austin Kleon’s blog: Spontaneity is learning and browsing is research.

A more fruitful approach to the challenge of living more fully in the moments starts from noticing that you are, in fact, always already living in the moment anyway, whether you live it or not.*
Oliver Burkeman

This is the pleasure of limits, the fun of play. Not doing what we want, but doing what we can with what is given.**
Ian Bogost

There are no age rules when it comes
to how invaluable a moment can be –
Nor background, gender or ethnicity rules.
In a moment,
You may make a life-altering decision,
Be wowed by a scene you are looking upon,
Inspired by an idea you have wandered into,
Enriched by something you realise, and,
If nothing else,
You can listen for what
a moment is asking of you.
Thank you to Oliver Burkeman
for reminding us that we are alredy
living in moments like these.

*Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks;
**Ian Bogost’s Play Anything.

Whatever the reason, we generate the meaning we need in the moment. The act of reinterpretation is fundamentally an act of agency; it give us a sense of control and confidence at exactly the moment we feel out of control and lacking confidence. Retelling our story accelerates our recover.*
Bruce Feiler

Given that storms are a certainty in life, there are basically
two responses available to us:
We can try to avoid them –
The problem is, we cannot avoid them all – or
we can prepare ourselves for them.
One way to do this is by
revisiting past storms.
Brené Brown suggests three components to this:
Firstly, the reckoning
is a revisiting with curiosity of your past storm-experience;
The rumble is about
honestly wrestling with
all your stormy feelings and thoughts;
The revolution involves creating
a new and better ending –
Which becomes preparation for the next storm.
In doing so, we have become
less a victim and more an agent.

*Bruce Feiler’s Life Is In the Transitions.

There’s always something just below the surface, the elements that most people simply don’t notice. But we can if we choose.*
Seth Godin

If we stick to the letter of the law, we don’t have to think. Because there’s risk involved in thinking. There’s nowhere to hide if it goes wrong. But real creativity often comes with risk. So don’t just blindly follow the words themselves.**
Dave Trott

Why do you want to do this?
If I look beneath the surface,
What will I find?

To serve a work of art,
greater or small, is to die,
to die to self.^

*Seth Godin’s blog: The things you can’t see;
**Dave Trott’s One + One = Three;
^Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water.

[P]eople all over the globe are coming to expect emotional and intellectual comfort as though it were a right. This is precisely what you would expect a generation to believe they have aright not to be offended.*
Greg Lukianoff

All the failures that we ever experience may be attributed to excessive thinking, and in particular the negative thoughts that pop up in our mind.**
Ryunosuke Koike’s The Practice of Not Thinking

Don’t get me wrong,
I like to think – and we have the saying
think before you speak, but
I can think too quickly and
excessively when
I perhaps ought to be paying attention, noticing
more.
It’s hard because we want to
be in control –
Out-of-control is scary,
And yet it’s where we’ll make
the really important discoveries about
each other, the world, and
ourselves:
Now I think that what makes you alert
is to be faced by a situation that is
beyond your control
so you have to be watching
very carefully
to see how it unfolds,
to be able to stay on top of it.
That kind of alertness is
exciting.^
So, please,
Speak and I will listen.

*Greg Lukianoff’s Freedom From Speech;
**Ryuanosuke Koike’s The Practice of Not Thinking;
^Tim Harford’s Messy.

Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am that river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.*
Jorge Luis Borges

If time were linear,
The moment would have passed,
Forever,
But because time is you,
Even now you may still do that thing
you must do.

*Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks.

When you try to focus on something you deem to be important, you’re forced to face your limits, an experience that feels especially uncomfortable precisely because the task at hand is one you value so much.*
Oliver Burkeman

The very moments that make us go “wow!” are the very same moments that can change our lives.**
Jonah Paquette

As I read these words,
I couldn’t help but bring to mind the hopes of
Joseph Campbell and Frederick Buechner
shared in yesterday’s post,
For it is never a waste of time noticing what we notice,
Especially when this changes us –
And f it changes us
it can help someone else.
But the desire to remain within our comfort zones,
And not prod and push at
our limitations, is
often a slippery path to a
smaller life.

*Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks;
**Joan Paquette’s Awestruck.

participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world*
Joseph Campbell

Instead of calling everything a game, we should think of everything as playable: capable of being manipulated in an interesting and appealing way within the confines of its constraints.**
Ian Bogost

I often share this thought as its espoused by Frederick Buechner,
How it is that we find our purpose where
our deepest joy meets the world’s greatest need.
This suggests to me a wonderful free-market economy in which
we each identify our art or invention that will be
meet the need of another –
This is what all art strives for:
the creation of a living permanence^ –
Not for everyone, but for
someone.

*Susan Cain’s Bittersweet;
**Ian Bogost’s Play Anything;
^John O’Donohue’s Benedictus.